The optimization of cooling resources within data centers, which includes the localized provisioning of cooling power with respect to heat dissipation, can lead to a significant reduction of energy consumption. See, for example, W. Tschudi et al., “Measuring and Managing Data-Center Energy Use,” HPAC Engineering, pp. 45-51 (March 2006) and H. F. Hamann et al., “Uncovering energy-efficiency opportunities in data centers,” IBM J. Res. & Dev., Vol. 53, No. 3, 10:1-10:12 (2009).
Such matching of cooling power with heat dissipation is rather straightforward for an entire data center. On a more granular level, however, the large range of heat densities of today's information technology (IT) equipment has made this task much more challenging. One complication comes from the fact that there is little operational information such as which physical areas, or zones, are supplied by the different air conditioning units (ACUs) so that local cooling demands can be met. See for example, E. Ferrer, et al., “Thermal Zone Mapping: Data Center Visualization Tool for Thermal Metric Analysis,” IMAPS ATW (2007). Evidently, such zones are not only determined by the placement and air flow produced by each ACU but also by the locations of perforated tiles throughout the data center and many other parameters. Methodologies have been proposed for determining such thermal (or cooling) zones, where each zone is associated with the actual efficiency of the corresponding ACU by considering the respective utilization of the units (heat removed/nominal heat load removal capacity) or coefficient of performance (COP) (COP=heat removed/power consumption for ACU fans), and software tools have been developed to help operators use this information for improving data center energy efficiency. See, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/540,034, filed by Hamann et al., entitled “Methods and Techniques for Creating and Visualizing Thermal Zones,” filed Aug. 12, 2009 (hereinafter “U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/540,034”) and H. F. Hamann et al., “Thermal zones for more efficient data center energy management,” Proceedings of ITHERM2010 (2010) (hereinafter “Hamann 2010”), the contents of each of which are incorporated by reference herein. One approach used for determining thermal zones is to compute an air velocity field and then use streamline or particle tracing methods to explicitly trace air flow paths and associate these paths with the originating/returning ACUs. See, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/540,034 and Hamann 2010. Using streamline or particle tracing methods for determining thermal zones, while effective, cannot always be performed quickly enough to give the immediate decision support sometimes needed when setting-up, rearranging and provisioning cooling in data centers.
Thus, faster, more efficient techniques for determining thermal zones would be desirable.